Damning review gives Uncle Sam a poor health report

Kevin Freking

WASHINGTON: Americans suffer far more violent deaths and are unhealthier than people in any other wealthy nation, a report by two of the nation's leading health research institutions shows.

The US has about six violent deaths per 100,000 residents.

None of the 16 other countries included in the review came anywhere close to that ratio.

For many years, Americans have been dying at younger ages than people in almost all other wealthy countries. In addition to the impact of gun violence, Americans consume the most calories among peer countries and get involved in more accidents that involve alcohol.

The US also suffers higher rates of drug-related deaths, infant mortality and AIDS.

The result is that the life expectancy for men in the US ranked the lowest among the 17 countries reviewed, at 75.6 years, and the life expectancy for US women ranked second lowest, at 80.7 years.

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The countries reviewed included Canada, Japan, Australia and much of western Europe.

Most statistics in the report are from the late 1990s through 2008. It found that US health disadvantages aren't limited to the poor and uninsured. Even white, college-educated and wealthier Americans tend to be in worse health than their peers in other developed countries.

The nation's health disadvantages have economic consequences. They lead to higher costs for consumers and taxpayers as well as a workforce that remains less healthy than that of other high-income countries.

''With lives and dollars at stake, the United States cannot afford to ignore this problem,'' said the report from the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine.

In attempting to explain why Americans are so unhealthy, researchers noted that the US has a large uninsured population compared to other countries with comparable economies, and more limited access to primary care.

The National Rifle Association did not immediately return calls seeking comment about the report but in the past gun-rights advocates have fought any suggestion that firearms ownership has public health implications, and they have won cuts in the government's budget for such research.

The researchers estimated that homicide and suicide together account for about a quarter of the years of life lost for US men compared to those in peer countries.

Homicide, they noted, is the second leading cause of death among adolescents and young adults aged 15-24. The large majority of those homicides involve firearms.

The researchers said there was little evidence that violent acts occurred more frequently in the US than elsewhere.

It is the lethality of those attacks that stands out.

''One behaviour that probably explains the excess lethality of violence and unintentional injuries in the United States is the widespread possession of firearms and the common practice of storing them [often unlocked] at home. The statistics are dramatic,'' the report said.